


Selfish

by TheSoundOfThunderstorms



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Guilt, from tumblr but better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 03:31:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSoundOfThunderstorms/pseuds/TheSoundOfThunderstorms
Summary: "I couldn’t stand the thought of being here without you."





	Selfish

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally posted to just tumblr because it was less than 2k words. Silly, I know. But I made it a bit better and added more to it. Enjoy :)

Widowmaker pressed her hands against warm blood. She already used her stim pack, but the blood kept coming. Sombra laid slumped in her arms with little strength to keep her own crimson-stained hands covering the hole in her neck.

A blood-covered hand fell to the ground.

Widowmaker held Sombra closer, rocking the two of them in place. She busied one of her hands with smoothing along Sombra’s sweat-slicked hair. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Comfort was the next best thing.

“You’ll be okay.” A lie said for Sombra’s benefit. Or maybe her own. Widowmaker shook when a weak touch grazed her arm.

“I’ll stay.” Another lie.

“Please.”

Sombra’s head dropped. She tried to speak but only blood came out instead.

-

Widowmaker showed the guards her pass. She had her skin covered; golden eyes fixated on the corridor past the man inspecting her credentials from behind a mask.

They let her in.

Adjusting the weight carried on her shoulder, Widowmaker walked the path she had memorized. The ride to Oasis was long enough for her to go over every step she’d have to take.

“I see you’ve made it here just fine. What can I do for you, Lacroix? I’m curious to know this urgent business you spoke about earlier.”

She shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t have even thought of coming. But that damn scientist was the only one who’d do what she asked. No one else would even think to do it. Widowmaker carefully put the body bag she carried over her shoulder onto Moira’s desk. She unzipped it, revealing Sombra’s face.

“Bring her back.” Widowmaker shouldn’t have been there but Moira owed her a favor and she wasn’t leaving without it.

Moira regarded Sombra’s body. She zipped the body bag back up and looked past Widowmaker, checking to see that her door was closed. “Why?”

Widowmaker knew what Moira wanted to know: the extent of their relationship, to know what Widowmaker felt towards Sombra. Moira wasn’t getting it. “You owe me.”

Eyes back on the bag again, Moira nodded her head slightly in agreeance. “I suppose I do.” She sighed, pushing her loose strands of hair back with her hand. “You should know I’ve never done this before; I can’t guarantee anything.” The screens lighting up Moira’s desk went dark after she shut them off.

“That’s never stopped you before,” Widowmaker crossed her arms, “and I know you’ve researched it.” She stressed the word 'researched', narrowing her eyes as it passed her lips.

“And how’d you find that out?”

Widowmaker nodded towards Sombra’s covered body.

Moira laughed. “Clever girl.”

-

Widowmaker stood over Sombra’s sleeping form. Truly, it was anything but sleep. More like an empty husk laid on a table. But Widowmaker preferred the term sleep. It insinuated that Sombra would wake up. And that’s all she wanted. “Will it work?”

“I’ve done well to preserve the brain tissue. It should work.” Moira tapped the tablet hooked-up with wires to the back of Sombra’s head.

The implants in Sombra’s head glowed. Moira removed the wires.

Purple eyes opened. They adjusted to the light in the room. Sombra’s jaw dropped. Screeching echoed against the walls, a cacophony of digital noise. Arms shot out to grip at her head. Sombra’s body jolted. She felt down her face again and again. It made the screeching worse.

Widowmaker reached out and took hold of one of those hands. The hand kept squeezing until she spoke. “Sombra.”

The noise stopped. Sombra turned her head and locked eyes with Widowmaker. She only blinked once. “What’s happening?”

-

The first night back with Sombra was a mistake. Widowmaker didn’t care for the scientist’s warnings, didn’t care to run testing on the new body. Sombra woke up, nothing else mattered.

They sat in bed together that night. Sombra had asked Widowmaker to talk to her about anything. It didn’t matter what, just that she kept talking. Widowmaker obliged, noticing that Sombra had her eyes trained on the floor as she spoke.

“I’ll be back.” Widowmaker needed a quick trip to the bathroom. As she stood to leave, Sombra grabbed hold of Widowmaker’s arm with panicked eyes.

“Wait.” Sombra pressed her free hand to her forehead, scanning over the same spot on the floor over and over. She grit her teeth, squeezing her hold on Widowmaker’s arm tighter.

The grip proved too strong. “Let go.” Widowmaker tried to pry her arm free but Sombra’s hand squeezed harder.

“I, I just…” The same words skipped over each other. Sombra hadn’t let go.

A popping sound stopped Sombra’s stuttering. Widowmaker extracted her arm from Sombra’s squeezing tight grip. Dulled pain pulsed from her arm. She held it to her chest, as she heaved out deep breaths.

Sombra stared at Widowmaker’s arm. Deafening quiet surrounded her as she sat still, mouth agape and eyes glossed over with a faraway gaze.

Widowmaker ended up taking herself to the medbay when she finally realized Sombra couldn’t say or do anything. The medical staff there confirmed what she already knew: the arm broke. She refused to answer any of their questions about what happened except for a curt, “It was an accident.”

Should Sombra’s name had left her lips, Widowmaker knew they’d come and take Sombra away from her. And she didn’t want that.

When Widowmaker got back to her room, arm newly casted, she found Sombra sitting in a chair across from the bed.

Sombra didn’t notice Widowmaker’s return. Instead, she stared down at her hands, watching the twitching of her fingers.

“Sombra.” Widowmaker took a seat on her bed. She saw Sombra’s head twitch a fraction, knowing that Sombra at least registered her own name. “Did you want to get back in bed?”

Nothing.

No matter how many times Widowmaker asked, Sombra refused to leave that chair. Despite the late hour, Widowmaker slid out of her bed and grabbed her tablet from her bedside table. She sat down on the floor by Sombra and took hold of Sombra’s hand. Picking a random book from her tablet, she read the story aloud.

The subtle way Sombra’s fingers squeezed Widowmaker’s hand every time Widowmaker took a break from reading served as the only indicator that she paid any attention at all.

-

Sombra kept quiet. For two months she rarely spoke a word. And then she stopped eating.

Sombra ate via an injection in her neck. She didn’t need food for a body she didn’t have anymore. Synthetic flesh, synthetic hair, mechanical joints, and a metal bone structure interlaced with a layering of cables. All that was left of Sombra was her mind, tucked safely away in a protective casing. She needed an injection daily. It had been weeks.

“Please.” Widowmaker held the syringe out for Sombra to take. Her hand shook as Sombra stared at it with disinterested eyes.

The syringe fell to the floor, spreading glass and the light-blue liquid it contained across the floor. A hot tear streamed down Widowmaker’s face when she realized that she had thrown the syringe.

Sombra lifted her gaze to Widowmaker’s. She stepped over the broken glass, the skin of her feet unable to feel a thing. Her hand reached up, almost to the point of touching Widowmaker’s face. Sombra dropped it instead and backed away. She moved to the edge of the bed and sat down. Eventually, Sombra stretched out over the sheets onto her back. It was the first time she did that since she broke Widowmaker’s arm. “Could you lie down with me?”

Widowmaker wiped away the tears from her face, nodding as she approached the bed. She got close but stopped a hairsbreadth away. She wanted to curl up with Sombra like they used to but all she thought about were the months where Sombra just sat in that chair with fear tinged eyes. They barely touched at all.

Sombra smiled and held her arms open. “Over here.”

Widowmaker held on tight. Sombra’s arms barely pressed around her waist, trying to hold back their strength. And it wasn’t the same. No heartbeat that ran at a faster tempo than her own. No steady breathing that sometimes carried her off to sleep. And Sombra’s warmth all but vanished. Despite it all, Widowmaker preferred all that over nothing.

At least half an hour passed when Sombra spoke. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t.

Sombra sat up slowly with Widowmaker in her arms. She reached for the case sitting on the bedside table. Opening it, Sombra pulled out a syringe filled with that same light-blue liquid still coating the floor. She leaned her head forward and handed the needle to Widowmaker.

More tears spilled down Widowmaker’s cheeks as she grabbed the syringe. She slid the needle into the port embedded in Sombra’s neck, feeling relief flood her veins as the liquid vanished from the barrel of the syringe. Finished, Widowmaker pulled out the needle and put it aside. She hugged Sombra from behind and cried again. The relief surging through her demanded an out and she obliged it.

Sombra wiped up a tear that spilled down to her chest. She spread it across her fingers before reaching up to take hold of Widowmaker’s arm curled around her shoulders. Such a light touch. “I can’t cry anymore. I didn’t think I’d miss it,” she shrugged, “and maybe I didn’t before. But…”

“But?” The word croaked out of Widowmaker’s throat, coming out rough and broken.

“I’ve never seen you cry. I thought that maybe you just couldn’t. But you can,” Sombra let go of Widowmaker’s arm and balled her hand into a fist, slamming it on her thigh, “and I made you do it.”

What could Widowmaker say to that? It’s okay? Because it wasn’t. Nothing was okay. She had to watch Sombra fade away for two months, knowing full well she carried the blame for it. Widowmaker took in a shaking breath and wiped away at her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

The only truth she could bear to speak.

-

Talking helped. At least, that’s what Sombra told Widowmaker. Idle conversation wasn’t her strong suit, but Widowmaker always found something to say. A story. A memory. A question.

“Do you still dream?”

“Never. Not since I woke up.”

Widowmaker frowned at the answer. “What about before?”

The corner of Sombra’s lips perked up. “I’d dream about you.”

“You’re not just saying that, are you?”

Sombra shook her head, still smiling. “It’s part of why I kind of miss it.” She reached out, smoothing away a strand of hair from Widowmaker’s face. “But I have the real thing right here, so, I can’t complain. Right?”

“It’s okay if you want to.” It’s my fault anyway.

The smile disappeared. “I won’t do that to you.”

-

Widowmaker found Sombra on the roof sitting at the edge with her legs dangling off the side. She had come back from an assignment to find her room empty. Sombra didn’t even pick up when she called. To keep herself from panicking, Widowmaker searched the base with forced calmness. Until she got to the roof and felt a shiver run up her spine. She could tell something was off.

Standing behind Sombra, Widowmaker tried to find something to say.

“I want to die.”

Sombra’s words had Widowmaker take a step back. Her body shook.

“I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Another step back.

“I can’t feel anything. I can’t taste anything. I can’t smell anything. I hurt you and I am trying so hard not to do it again. But sometimes my body doesn’t respond and that scares me. I’m lost for hours at a time remembering nothing but mind-numbing blackness. I don’t sleep, and I never will. I can’t feel _anything_ that makes me feel alive. It’s like I don’t belong here anymore. I can’t take it.”

All of that was her fault. Widowmaker wrapped her arms around herself to try to stop the shaking. She didn’t even know half the things Sombra spoke up. Never bothered to ask because she was too afraid to ask. Too afraid to know just how much she fucked up.

“I have to keep reminding myself that I’m still here, that I’m still alive. Because if I don’t, it feels like I’ll just disappear. And that scares me so much. But another part of me keeps thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if it was all over.” Sombra stood up. She balled her fists. “That’s why I like listening to you speak. It keeps me here.” Sombra relaxed her hands and let them hang by her sides. “But when I’m by myself, it’s so hard to keep trying.”

Widowmaker watched Sombra’s body sway with the wind. One wrong step and Sombra would fall over. So why couldn’t she move?

“But there’s one thing, one thing that makes me try again.”

Widowmaker’s clenched jaw loosened enough for her to speak. “And what’s that?”

Sombra turned around and smiled. “I love you so damn much.”

Widowmaker stumbled forward. She wrapped her arms around Sombra’s waist and pulled Sombra away from the edge.

The shaking stopped.

-

Silence surrounded the trip back from the lab. Augmentations to Sombra’s synthetic skin. They were told it would take hours to feel any sensation. The question was whether it would work at all.

They got back to Widowmaker’s room and slipped under the covers. An arm’s length of space separated them as they faced each other.

An hour.

Hours.

They stayed like that until Sombra reached out her hand. She dragged it slowly across the sheets. Her brows lifted and her eyes went wide. Sombra stopped her hand before touching Widowmaker, extending a single finger out. And then she laughed, smiling wide.

The laughter startled Widowmaker. She hadn’t heard it in so long. It sounded odd, the lack of lungs taking away the breathy quality it once had before. Widowmaker focused on the faint touch on her arm, grinning along with Sombra at invisible, random patterns Sombra drew on her skin.

“The last straw was when I couldn’t feel you. You could be sleeping in my arms all night and I couldn’t feel a damn thing. I tried, again and again, to maybe trick my mind into sensing anything whenever I touched you. Nothing.” Sombra paused her exploration of Widowmaker’s arm. “But I can feel you right now.”

Widowmaker closed her eyes tight. She furrowed her brows and clenched her teeth, trying so hard to keep from crying. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I couldn’t let you go. You gave me so much and I couldn’t stand the thought of being here without you. I was selfish and you suffered for it.”

Gentle strokes from Sombra’s thumb wiped away the hot tears spilling down Widowmaker’s cheeks. She managed to coax Widowmaker’s eyes open. “I forgave you for that every day since waking up. I never blamed you. I never wanted to.”

“Why?” Widowmaker knew the answer. She just wanted to hear it one more time, already acting selfishly again.

Sombra closed the distance between, placing an arm around Widowmaker’s waist. She pulled Widowmaker close, keeping her in a tight hold. “Because I love you so damn much.”


End file.
